Open Fraud in Tendering: CBI registers case against 8 Central Railway Officials & searches 12 premises
The officials concerned was making wrongful gain to the suppliers and corresponding loss to the Railway
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a corruption case against eight senior officials of Electrical and Stores department of Central Railway, Kurla car shed and Vidyavihar Stores depot in Mumbai for allegedly favouring some private firms and purchasing non-store items at higher rates, and conducted searches at 12 premises on Monday, 15th February 2022.
The CBI claimed that 8 Central Railway officials including former SrDEE/TRS, Kurla car shed Ved Prakash, former ADEE/TRS, Kurla car shed Vijay Kumar and SMM/Vidyavihar store depot, Suresh Kapre, entered into conspiracy with private suppliers for purchasing the items at 8-15 times higher rates, causing loss of over Rs 22 crore to the Railways. Unknown private persons have also been named in the case.
The other accused officials are –
1. Sureshchandra G. Baria, SSE/Furnishing, Kurla car shed.
2. D. D. Sorte, SSE/TRS, Kurla car shed.
3. H. S. Gomes, Chief OS (Retd.), Vidyavihar Stores depot.
4. Anjali Gupta, Chief OS/Vidyavihar Stores depot.
5. Arun Pratap Shriram, DEE, Kurla car shed.
The CBI alleged that accused officials issued tenders for procurement of various parts/items to be used for maintenance of local train (EMU rakes) at Vidyavihar Store depot and Kurla car shed. They allegedly made ambiguous descriptions of the items for non-stock purchase under Limited Tender category.
The discription of the items were kept in such a manner so that they cannot be procured from the GeM (Government e-market) portal and may not be understood by other suppliers, except some set of suppliers who were involved in the conspiracy.
The tenders were allotted to the set of suppliers only and most of the items which are locally made, procured on exorbitant rates, which show nexus between the above officials and the suppliers of the same.
The purchase orders against most of the tenders open at Vidyavihar Store depot have been awarded to the same set of suppliers/firms during 3 financial years –
It is further revealed that out of 8 suppliers, registration of 2 firms namely – M/s. Diwan Sons and M/s. Real Technologies of Compusys – under different categories for supply of various items have already expired in the year 2010 and 2011 respectively.
The other six firms were not found to be registered under Trade Group with the Central Railway, still they were awarded tenders even higher rates regularly.
As per FIR, the following private firms are involved in the process of supply of poor quality material on higher rates-
1. M/s. Diwan Sons
2. M/s. Alfa Engineers
3. M/s. S. M. Saha
4. M/s. Shri Satguru Electric
5. M/s. Monisha Trading
6. M/s. Alif Enterprises
7. M/s. Real Technologies of Compusys
It is also revealed that most of the purchase orders were intentionally kept below Rs 2.5 lakh to bring down the competency to Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer (SrDEE) level approval and it was intentionally done to avoid account vetting.
The CBI found that the purchase orders against most of the tenders opened at Vidyavihar store depot between 2018 and 2020 were awarded to above seven firms in small quantities collectively worth Rs 21.3 crore, and the suppliers had provided poor quality of materials.
Earlier in the internal enquiry by the Vigilance department of Central Railway, CSMT, also revealed that items had been purchased on 8-15 times higher rates than other Division/Railway and all the tenders have been floated as Limited Tenders and Time of Delivery has been deliberately kept 2-3 days against guidelines issued for 7 days vide letter no. 07/CR/S/0061/2017, dtd 20.09.2017.
The above named officials of Central Railway, Mumbai who were involved in the tendering fraud and its acceptance process, with malafide intentions of suspected pecuniary advantage, favoured verious firms by alloting tenders and accepting poor quality of materials on higher rates. In doing so they caused wrongful gain to the suppliers and corresponding loss to the Railway.
The above facts revealed commission of cognizable offences and hence a regular case for offences registered u/s 120B r/w 420, 465, 468 & 409 of IPC and u/s 13(2), 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 1988 against above all 8 Central Railway officials.
It should be noted that the CBI got the permission for the registration of offence and investigation against the above 8 Central government officials from the home department of Maharashtra government on 21st September, 2021. Earlier, on the basis of internal vigilance investigation report of SDGM/CR, Railway Board has already given nod to the CBI on 21st October, 2020.
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